Bathurst launches pilot project for compressed work week and hybrid working model
The City of Bathurst will be launching a pilot project for compressed work week and hybrid working models. The initiative, available to two targeted employee groups, will begin on Monday April 24th, for a duration of six months.
“Attracting and retaining top talent is becoming more and more of a challenge in any business or enterprise, and municipal governments are not immune to this challenge. Even with competitive wages and great employee benefits, it’s been demonstrated that offering schedule flexibility is an excellent add-on strategy for recruiting and maintaining an effective workforce, this without compromising client service. In that optic, we view this pilot project as an important step to establish ourselves even more as a destination of choice for employment,” said C.A.O. Todd Pettigrew.
A compressed work week is a flexible work arrangement whereby an employee works longer shift hours in exchange for a reduction in the number of working days in the working week, whereas a hybrid working model is a flexible work arrangement where an employee fulfils his or her regularly scheduled job responsibilities, for a number of days at the workplace and a number of days at a remote location, usually the employee’s home.
In both models, the number of weekly hours worked remains the same as a regular work week.
“The schedule flexibility in these working models has been shown to enhance productivity, improve client services during extended hours, reduce absenteeism, and increase employee satisfaction and morale. So, we look forward to reviewing the concrete data from our work force, during and after the pilot project, to clearly demonstrate that these models deserve to be permanently implemented,” stated Pettigrew.
Members of the Management team and the administrative personnel (C.U.P.E. Local 1282 employees) will have the opportunity to submit their interest to be part of the pilot project.